Paula Hepburn, profile and works

Sound categories: Sound Source organising , made easy

Today I’ve been looking over spotting sheets for planned and recorded sounds for a post production project I’m working on. And I realised how handy it would be to have a table of sound types for students and enthusiasts new to the world of audio/video technology; so I made one:

Sound

Description

Diegetic

Any sound the characters on screen can hear, i.e. dialogue.

Non-diegetic

Sounds the audience can hear but not the characters, i.e. narration, canned laughter.

Non-simultaneous

Sounds that take place depicting an event that isn’t happening on screen. For example, reading out a letter, like someone is writing it while onscreen someone is doing something completely different, but the letter itself relates to the person on screen.

Direct

Sounds recorded at the time of filming.

Synchronous

Sound that complement the movement of the character on screen.

Post synchronising

Dubbing, Foley, effects all recording in post production, usually in sync with the film itself.

Off screen

Sound used to describe what’s going on at the time but emphasising the onscreen action with a different exploit, usually to draw focus the important entity.

These are all key sources for planning audio post production, not only do they assist with spotting, but colour coordinating types of sound facilitates an organised Mix down for that final master.